Every week we provide an interesting snippet of technology or industry news.
Topics range from what you would expect from us (what we have done) to interesting industry developments.

Check back every Thursday for a new blog posting.

At the Wheel

May 23, 2019

Until the early 1990s, Houston Metro ran its paratransit service using scheduling software developed in-house by a NASA engineer.
Code Choppers’ principle developer was instrumental in replacing that system with APS,
a PC/DOS application he designed and developed while at Ryder Systems.
At the time Ryder owned ATE (now First Transit) and Houston Metro gave a contract to ATE for use of APS.
It was written using the Clipper dBASE database language, ran on desktop PCs connected to a Novell NetWare server.
The GIS (geocoding information system) used to geocode addresses and the routing and scheduling algorithms were developed in-house by Ryder.

Houston Metro went from an in-house system to vendor software.
Most other paratransit operations didn’t have an in-house system,
but began using vendor software when it came onto the market for use on desktop PCs.
It didn’t make sense to reinvent the wheel when a few vendors did all the hard work and made it available for a reasonable license fee with
annual support contracts.

PC desktop software running under DOS eventually gave way to software running under Windows,
which is now being replaced by applications running in a browser.
With development costs and risks high and unknown, transit operators aren’t reinventing the wheel, developing their own browser applications.

Many aren’t happy with the licensing and annual support contract model, but feel stuck, without any other option.
That’s why Code Choppers is offering operations the opportunity to take back control of the wheel,
as Houston Metro once had control of their software.
We’ll either customize our existing applications to their requirements with a path to ownership,
or give them the control they want with a copy of the application source code.
Either way, they’ll be at the wheel without the development costs and risks.

Posted by the Products Department.

The Geocoding Breakthrough

May 16, 2019

This is the second of a two-part series on the key elements which made paratransit routing and scheduling software possible.
There were two key factors which led to its proliferation and utilization throughout the transit industry.
Interestingly, both PCs and address geocoding became practical at about the same time.

Two firms were the major providers of digital maps for PCs, MapInfo and Esri with their ArcInfo product.
Integrating either of these products into the DOS applications of that era allowed for address geocoding.
Before then, the best transit operations could do was place an address in a map grid, such as row A and column six.
Due to the large grid sizes, routing trips was impractical.
The problem was two addresses very close to each other could be in different grids,
while two other addresses in the same grid could be far apart.
It all depended upon the size of the grids, but none had the needed precision. Geocoding makes grids exactingly minute.

Posted by the Customers Department.

PCs at the Tipping Point

May 9, 2019

This is the first of a two-part series on the key elements which made paratransit routing and scheduling software widely available.
There were two key factors which led to its proliferation and utilization throughout the transit industry.
Interestingly, both PCs and address geocoding became practical at about the same time.

Affordable PCs were developed which allowed transit operations of all sizes to purchase computing technology.
Prior to PCs, some transit offices had access to a mainframe or minicomputer.
These were expensive; required special computer rooms, highly qualified administrators, and had limited software.
Usually the applications were for back office tasks, such as payroll.

By the time PCs were being installed in transit operations they had color monitors and numerous applications to help the staff,
including word processors and spreadsheets.
In most cases a local area network (LAN) was also installed to connect multiple PCs with a file server,
which allowed for easy sharing of information between staff and departments.
The PC and its DOS operating system was the foundation for developers to create highly functioning routing and scheduling software.

Posted by the Customers Department.

Owning Convenience

May 2, 2019

Code Choppers is applying its subscription payment technology to passenger payments. It has been part of our web apps since 2012.

A custom app customer became excited during a demo when we showed him our payment portal.
We were discussing the features and functions of our web apps and mentioned our integrated payment portal.
Their enthusiasm for extending it to passenger payments was all it took to make it a feature available to all customization and
code ownership customers.

People expect to pay online. We believe passengers will appreciate this customer friendly addition to their transit experience.

Posted by the Customers Department.

130 Lines

April 25, 2019

That’s all it took to create a bar chart from scratch. Six lines of HTML code, 44 lines of JavaScript, and 80 lines of CSS.

We recently began adding charts to our web app reports to help users get more from their data.
At first we thought it may require using some plug-ins to make it happen.
Then we got to thinking about what has to be displayed and what we’ve done with similar elements, in this case lines. Voilà!
The technique for coding bar charts was obvious.

We needed a good candidate for a chart and the Performance Report’s Passengers per Hour statistics were ideal.

Our next graphical report will be a pie chart. It's fun to make something as complex as data aggression easy as pie!

Posted by the Products Department.

What?

April 18, 2019

Earlier this week our Products staff was showing the Customers staff how we use browser tools to help code our web apps and websites.
We showed how to also look at the code of other websites.
To demonstrate we accessed the website of leading software vendor in the transit industry. (You know them.)
While showing how the tools work we noticed the vendor’s website is from a WordPress template.
A software company needing an off-the-shelf template for their website is odd.
It’s like a race car driver needing to hire Uber to drive the Indy 500 for them.

We create the websites for our company and our products from scratch.
This gives us additional experience using the languages and tools we also use for developing our web apps.
This gives us code and techniques we can then apply to our web apps.
More experience leads to better skills, which leads to offering our customer better technology.

This cross development approach leads to applying what we learn from building our web apps to coding our websites.
The end result is all of our technology wins, as do our customers and the transit industry.

Posted by the Products Department.

Yearn to Learn

April 11, 2019

Learning new things can be fun and challenging.
We depend upon our staff to add to its knowledge of the industry and keep abreast of the technology needed to support our customers.
We do this by taking classes and conducting research.

Last week a member of our team took a class on designing apps.
Even though they aren’t part of the technical staff they wanted to add to their skills when working with clients on the requirements and
initial design of custom apps.
That was accomplished. What they didn’t expect was to learn about some tools which will help them develop presentations!

Time well spent in more ways than one.

Posted by the Customers Department.

Right Before Your Eyes

April 4, 2019

All computer databases are vulnerable to being hacked.
Hacks are routinely in the news and sometimes the story is about an intrusion from a nefarious group.
Yet, databases are more vulnerable to hacks closer to home.
They’re accessible by database administrators and managers, system developers, and programmers.
Under most circumstances,
implementing the best cyber security won’t prevent a staffer with the right tools from doing a hack, even if the data is encrypted.
The best way to protect a database from an internal hack is by keeping the number of people with access to a minimum.

Posted by the Products Department.

Two Sides

March 28, 2019

Second of a two part series on demand response passenger technology.

We included paratransit and NEMT passenger online access with our first paratransit web app eight years ago.
Since then a few other transit technology vendors have followed.
Like us, they recognize anyone taking any kind of transportation expects to book online.

There are two sides to our Blue Dog technology. The operations side gives booking access to individual passengers.
The passengers side allows for trip bookings, checking current orders, and viewing current trip status and vehicle location.

What we think makes our technology special is it’s accessible on any mobile device, without the need to download and install a special app.
So easy.

Posted by the Customers Department.

Customer Convenience

March 21, 2019

First of a two part series on demand response passenger technology.

Recently, there’s more interest in allowing paratransit and NEMT passengers online trip booking.
We think this is a beneficial development for the transit industry, non-emergency medical transportation providers, and their passengers.
(We thought that eight years ago when we included it with our first paratransit web app.)

There are three elements to the technology. First is giving access to individual passengers in order for them to book their trips online.
Second is giving those passengers a tool for accessing their booked trips and status of any current day trips.
Third is having onboard technology which provides vehicle location for the upcoming trip pick-up.

We live in a world where anyone taking any kind of transportation expects to book online.
It’s our job to provide that functionality to your operation, whether you have a few vehicles or hundreds.

Posted by the Customers Department.

Black is Back

March 14, 2019

Between work and home you may be spending a lot of time looking at desktop, laptop, tablet and phone screens.
More and more developers are offering what’s called dark mode,
the ability to reverse the rendering of screens from black text on white to white text on black.

There are some advantages to using dark mode. One, over longer periods it is easier on your eyes.
Two, for mobile devices, it saves your battery power because making all those background pixels white consumes power,
whereas black pixels use no power. Three, it improves readability in darkness.
(That’s why our mobile apps where designed for dark mode rendering, because it’s usually darker inside a vehicle.)

Try it sometime. Seeing is believing.

Posted by the Customers Department.

Gift with Read

March 7, 2019

Code Choppers is pleased to make available to you a free desktop background. Our graphics staffer sometimes creates something for fun.
In this case they wanted to honor a style made popular by Piet Mondrian, who was born 147 years ago today.
He was one of the founders of modern art and his designs are easily recognized.
We are motivated and influenced by all sorts of things and like to give recognition to those who help us with our creativity.

If you would like another size or your name and colors to fit your operation, please feel free to contact us.

Posted by the Customers Department.

41 Minutes

February 28, 2019

Predictably, our development staff didn’t want us to post this. They aren’t for tooting their own horn.
Nonetheless, we were impressed and think this is something our current and potential customers may find interesting.

A customer asked us to create a custom report for their operation.
We scheduled the job as soon as we got the specifications and design confirmation from the customer.
A few days later our staff began work on the report and finished it in 41 minutes.
The turnaround time from customer request to production was about a week.

If you know someone in transit who likes having things done quickly by their software vendor, please let them know about Code Choppers.

Posted by the Customers Department.

It’s All in a Name

February 21, 2019

While recently visiting sites in Tennessee we were asked about the meaning of our name, Code Choppers. That wasn’t the first time we’ve been asked.

When we first entered the software development business, we incorporated as Route Logic, Inc.
Five years later, another company entered the market and used an eerily similar name, RouteMatch.
They also called their paratransit software ParaMatch, using Para before the second part of their company name,
as we had already done with our ParaLogic system.

We decided to end the confusion they started. When we began development of our browser applications to replace our desktop systems
we thought it made sense to rebrand our company.
We bandied about lots of ideas. The one which seemed a good fit is a reference to our development process.
Thus, Code Choppers was born, with Code referring to application code and Choppers being slang for writing code.
It may not be a standard industry name, but it works for us.

It wouldn’t surprise us if RouteMatch changes their name, too. Maybe to something like Code Cutters?

Posted by the Customers Department.

Moving Day

February 18, 2019

After careful consideration, we’ve decided to move the publication day of our Chopping Blog from Monday to Thursday.
We hope this gives our readers more time to enjoy the postings without the extra responsibilities often awaiting them on Mondays.
Our first post on the new day will be this Thursday.

Posted by the Customers Department.

Death of a Browser

February 11, 2019

For years Code Choppers has recommended our customers not use Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser with our web apps.
Because the browser wasn’t supporting basic web standards, both rendering pages and processing features and functions were hit or miss.
On top of those issues, it was significantly slower than alternative browsers.

Now even Microsoft has jumped on the bandwagon. Their cybersecurity expert, Chris Jackson, posted in a blog,
“We're not supporting new web standards for it and,
while many sites work fine, developers by and large just aren't testing for Internet Explorer these days. They're testing on modern browsers.”

They discontinued Internet Explorer in 2015. We discontinued it in 2011 when our apps came to market.

Posted by the Customers Department.

First Hand Frustration

February 4, 2019

Last week the head of our Customers department had six on-site visits with operations not using Code Choppers apps.
A recurring theme was the frustration with their current transportation management system.
The most egregious was waiting more than a decade for a promised new feature.
To make matters worse, no one from the software vendor will return their calls. We don’t think customers should be treated that way.

Owning your app means not being dependent on a vendor like that. You are in control of enhancements, costs, and access to your data.

Frustration can lead to anxiety, and neither is good.

Posted by the Customers Department.

Blog of a Different Color

January 28, 2019

Our graphics staffer remembered today is also Jackson Pollock’s birthday. They made a case for creating a graphic in the Pollock style.
The dog references tie into our app names, Red Dog and Blue Dog. Enjoy!

Posted by the Customers Department.

The Emoji

January 21, 2019

The first emoji was created in Japan in 1999, by a team working at a spinoff of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation.
The idea was to help improve mobile phone communications by incorporating symbols with messages.
As is well known, a picture is worth 1,000 words and an emoji is worth 500.

The first emoji was not alone, but belonged to a set of 176.
With the growth of their popularity, they became part of the international standard for characters used by the computing industry.
Now there are 1,250 official emojis. Something for everyone!

Posted by the Customers Department.

A Tastier Menu

January 14, 2019

When we began getting deeper into the conversion of our paratransit/NEMT app from VanGo to Blue Dog,
we found more and more items we wanted to update.

A major part of the app are the navigation menus, with their buttons, at the top of the pages. These let users move between the different functions.

With VanGo each button has three graphics: one for at rest, one for hover, and one for active. They are controlled by JavaScript code.

But for Blue Dog we wanted buttons which were rendered by the stylesheet (CSS) and can have their colors changed through the code.
This means the process for creating a custom app is streamlined.
Blue Dog also benefits from tighter, more efficient code than the JavaScript of VanGo’s buttons.

We’re proud of the new menus our team has delivered.

Posted by the Products Department.

Stick with Me

January 7, 2019

Our 2019 corporate goals include an aggressive enhancement schedule. One of the Blue Dog enhancements has already been rolled out.

When entering or updating a passenger their data carries over to the Orders function.
The information is queued up and ready for entering their order.

Posted by the Customers Department.

From Our Team to Yours

December 17, 2018

Our next post will be Monday, January 7, 2019.

Posted by the Customers and Products Departments.

Fetch

December 10, 2018

We are rebranding VanGo to Blue Dog and adding new enhancements with exciting new features and functions.
The first is a passenger search feature in the Passengers and Orders functions. It dynamically updates the list when adding or removing characters.
We tested it with a passenger database of more than 2,500 names. Searching this large database was instantaneous.

This isn’t the first time we built a passenger search. We have one in our Windows ParaLogic paratransit system.
As you can see, the new search feature has a totally different look.

2019 will see many more powerful features added to our apps. It’s good to be a Code Choppers customer.

Posted by the Customers Department.

Responding to You

December 3, 2018

There are websites which are not easily viewable on a phone. (Who hasn’t been frustrated when coming across one like that!?)
Luckily, designing websites which look good on phones has never been easier.

The best approach is to develop a website using responsive web design (RWD).
This allows for a website to be coded once and renders well on all devices.
It does this through three design concepts. One, resizing elements using percentages instead of pixels or points. Two, making image sizes flexible.
Three, using stylesheet (CSS) rules to determine device screen sizes and applying appropriate rules.

A website can be coded to render well on phones without using RWD, but it requires a second coding of the entire site just for phones.

Posted by the Products Department.

New Blue

November 26, 2018

As we blogged last week, Code Choppers has been reviewing its branding. Last week we rolled out a new logo.

We decided our VanGo paratransit app also needed a refresh.
To make a long story short, after considering all sorts of new names,
we felt calling it Blue Dog helped to unify it with Red Dog, our fixed route app.

And yes, these dogs are learning some new tricks. Major new features and functions will be rolled out in the not to distant future.

Posted by the Customers Department.

Rebranding

November 19, 2018

Not only was Apple once Apple Computer, it is also on its seventh logo. Few companies go through life without tweaking their branding.

With our new emphasis on custom applications, we thought it was a good time for a comprehensive review of our company and product web pages, blog,
graphics, naming and logos. From that effort we decided to update and better unify our visual branding.
Our team is busy developing the new fresh look and the required graphic standards.

We’ll be doing a soft rollout of the branding, but are excited to share with you the new Code Choppers logo.

Posted by the Customers Department.

TPTA Thoughts

November 12, 2018

Code Choppers was proud to be a Conference Patron at the Tennessee Public Transportation Association (TPTA) Annual Conference & Expo last week.
The experience exceeded our expectations! We met many transit and vendor professionals for the first time and reconnected with many more.
Between the sessions, bus roadeo, and awards ceremony, we learned a tremendous amount and exchanged valuable information.

This was our first official opportunity to discuss how operators can have customized paratransit and fixed route apps.
It was surprising from where some of the interest in our novel approach came.

Thank you to all the people who made our attending so enjoyable.

Posted by the Customers Department.

Time for TPTA

November 5, 2018

The Tennessee Public Transportation Association (TPTA) is holding its Annual Conference & Expo in Knoxville, November 6-9.
Code Choppers is proud to be a Conference Patron and have the opportunity to meet with transit professionals from throughout the state.
This will be our first official marketing opportunity to discuss how operators can have customized paratransit and fixed route apps.
If you’ll be attending the TPTA conference, please feel free to contact us.

Posted by the Customers Department.

Creepy Crawlers

October 29, 2018

With Halloween fast approaching, it seems a good time to blog about web search engine crawlers.

Search engines display results based upon the criteria you enter. The results come from databases of indexed web pages.
That is supplied by information from crawlers going through the World Wide Web.

Interestingly, you can see what a crawler sees when cataloging a web page.
Use cachedview to see what the Google crawler sees.

Posted by the Customers Department.

Implementing Input

October 22, 2018

Listening to customers drives good operations to become better.
Not only do customers benefit when their ideas are realized, but organizations also improve their products or services.

On Sunday, October 21, 60 Minutes had a segment on Andy Byford, the new president of transit for New York’s MTA.
He’s a transit turnaround expert who talks to passengers and staff to get their inputs. He gets down into the trenches.

At Code Choppers we have the same philosophy.
Our staff not only visits operations, they also ride on the vehicles and do the tasks our customers do using our applications.
We believe that experience makes our apps better tools.
In an effort to meet the highest customer expectations, we recently decided to offer the option of customized apps.
This lets them get our proven, stable technology with all the unique items they desire.

Posted by the Customers Department.

Putting the Worry Behind

October 15, 2018

More and more, the news has stories about hacking and the lack of website security.
Your personal and operational information can be compromised without your knowledge.

It's important to minimize vulnerability of your data and apps from nefarious activities.
A big step is removing as many outside individuals as possible from having access.
This includes controlling who works on your system and where it's hosted.

Large organizations and operations usually have their own secure servers.
That allows them to host websites, apps and databases with support from their own IT staff.
Nonetheless,
those without in-house servers can still improve security by taking control of their apps and databases when presented with the opportunity.
App ownership is a new offering from Code Choppers.
Paratransit, fixed route, and NEMT operations can all benefit from the heightened security it provides.

Posted by the Customers Department.

In with the New

October 8, 2018

Code Choppers is on a mission.
We are proposing a new approach, provide the transit industry with the benefits of owning their applications.
They can buy the source code or have us create a custom system. Either way, operations win through ownership.

We use our Project X framework for the website.
We developed Project X to provide clean, fast desktop and mobile page rendering.
It is so easy even a non-computer person can build a website using it.

Posted by the Customers Department.

A Bit About Bitcoin

October 1, 2018

Your money is a number. Your bank does not have currency and coins sitting in your account.
When you use a credit or debit card, a number is transferred, not physical money. People trust those numbers.

Bitcoin is basically the some thing. The difference, Bitcoin is a number not backed up by a central back run by a government.
It's a cryptocurrency, a private medium of exchange.

Blockchain is the technology behind Bitcoin and other virtual currencies.
It's a distributed ledger which uses the internet and records every transaction.

In short, Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, and blockchain is the technology behind it.

Posted by the Customers Department.

Land Drones

September 24, 2018

This is the last in a series of three regarding changes in urban transportation.

Jason Bordoff's "Meet the Future of Urban Transportation: the Bus" in The Wall Street Journal
discusses the move towards new bus technologies in depth.

Driverless buses are here.
Stockholm and Helsinki began using them on some routes. In the drive for this technology, fixed route buses are ideal as a first step.
The routes are consistent and less complex the private automobile journeys. This is good from a technology development perspective.
Success is greatly enhanced when the basic functions are implemented first and subsequent complexities (features and functions)
are layered on top of a proven and stable base.

Posted by the Customers Department.

It's Electrifying

September 17, 2018

This is the second in a series of three regarding changes in urban transportation.

Jason Bordoff's "Meet the Future of Urban Transportation: the Bus" in The Wall Street Journal
discusses the move towards new bus technologies in depth.

What caught our attention was the section on wireless charging. Using electromagnetic induction coils buses could charge without having to plug in.
Since buses are on set routes, the charging coils could be placed at stops.
The only time the buses would need to be offline would be for cleaning or maintenance.

Another benefit of wireless charging is the need for large fueling facilities.
Not needing the space for refueling makes it possible to utilize smaller parcels of land.
In urban areas this could be geographically beneficial to a transportation agency.

Posted by the Customers Department.

A Breath of Fresh Air

September 10, 2018>

This is the first in a series of three regarding changes in urban transportation.

Jason Bordoff's "Meet the Future of Urban Transportation: the Bus" in The Wall Street Journal
discusses the move towards new bus technologies in depth.

China has 99% of the world's electric bus fleet. The entire bus fleet of Shenzhen, a city that links Hong Kong to the Chinese mainland, is electric.
Bloomberg New Energy Finance predicts by 2025 half the world's transit buses will be electric, with most being in China.

A major driver for the Chinese to move to electric buses is the need to reduce pollution.
In 2013 China released the Air Pollution Action Plan, aimed at combating toxic air in cities.

An added benefit of electric buses is they are far quieter than diesels.

Posted by the Customers Department.

Meeting the Need

September 3, 2018

When you run an app on your phone or tablet, you run compiled code. When you browse a web site, you run interpretive code.

Compiled applications run faster than their interpreted cohorts.
On the flip side, interpreted apps are cross platform, meaning they run on most common devices.
For example, our VanGo paratransit app runs on anything with a browser, whereas an iPhone app won't run on a Windows or Mac desktop computer.

The business decision of who are the intended users and their needs is what determines the whether the application should be cross platform or
native to a specific device. The technical component of compiled or interpreted is the language in which it is written.

With both your business functions and personal interests, it's a good bet you use both types of apps.

(The blue code above is an example of a file with compiled code and the red code is interpretive code.)

Posted by the Products Department.

X Marks the Spot

August 27, 2018

Social media is part of most people's daily lives. Many organizations use it to publicize their products, services, and/or causes.
For small entities, social media can be a quick and relatively inexpensive way of connecting with potential customers.

Social media has its limitations. When a small entity begins to grow, it often wants to replace its starter web site or improve it.
These entities had put more emphasis on social media and less on their web sites.

They don't have many options for a web site which offers a clean user interface, easy text and image uploading,
and balanced desktop and mobile page renderings. We've been working on helping them with our Project X application. Will keep you posted.

Posted by the Customers Department.

Hard Coding is Easy

August 20, 2018

When programming, hard coding is the practice of putting a value into the code without giving users the opportunity to change it.
For the programmer it is easier and faster to hard code an item than to set up an input feature for users (soft coding).

For example, a labor report may include a minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. The programmer can hard code that amount into the calculations.
Users may be very happy with the report at the time it is developed.
But a few years down the road a state raises its minimum wage to $8.75 per hour. Oops.
Now a programmer has to develop another report with the new wage.
Depending upon circumstances, it may take a while for the new report to be scheduled and coded.
It may also result in a hefty programming charge. If the original programmer had soft coded the minimum wage none of that would be required.
Also, only one report would have to be supported going forward.

Posted by the Products Department.

Less Risk, More Reward

August 13, 2018

This is the last in a three part series on proprietary information technology systems, based upon an article from The Wall Street Journal
by Christopher Mims.

Developing a custom IT system is tricky. Building the right team, designing the system, and writing the code can take years.
This doesn't take into consideration all the unit, integration, system and acceptance testing needed for it to be successful.

The quicker, easier and less risky approach is to buy an existing system, if you're fortunate enough to find one.
Usually, the only way to get an existing system is to acquire the entire company which developed it.
This is what Facebook did to get the photo and video sharing functionality of Instagram.

Interestingly, given the uncertainty of cost overruns and missed deadlines, buying an existing custom system may not only be the safer decision,
but also the less expensive one.

Posted by the Customers Department.

The Right Fit

August 6, 2018

This is the second in a three part series on proprietary information technology systems, based upon an article from The Wall Street Journal
by Christopher Mims.

There may be a time when you have to wear a suit. It can be frustrating trying to buy a suit that fits well.
Some too big, some too small, and some just wrong for you.

This is also true of information technology systems. The staff searches for the one with the best fit for the organization.
Eventually, they settle for a good fit, knowing it isn't perfect.
For those items not completely satisfied by the new system, users develop work arounds.
Between those and the missing features, there is a negative impact on productivity.
The high cost to go from adequate to perfect is far more than the hit to productivity.
We all use off-the-shelf spreadsheet and word processing applications for this very reason.

But some organizations feel the need to invest in custom systems for their core operations.
They use these custom applications to create a competitive advantage. For them, an ill-fitting baggy suit doesn't fit right.

Posted by the Customers Department.

The Race is On

July 30, 2018

This is the first in a three part series on proprietary information technology systems, based upon an article from The Wall Street Journal
by Christopher Mims.

Technology isn't free. The amount of money allocated to IT is important.
But how it is allocated makes more of an impact in an organization's revenues and long-term success.

When PCs first rolled out, off-the-shelf software was sufficient.
Spreadsheet and word processing applications did their jobs well, but operational specific systems were also in demand.
Run cutting and computer aided dispatching software are two examples of this in the transit industry.

In the private sector many organizations developed their own operational systems, not relying on software from outside vendors.
What's been found, organizations have developed not only systems, but competitive advantages.
Firms which bought systems from vendors, trying to save resources, have fallen behind.

It's a race to the finish, and owning their applications has proven to be a big boost for companies which know how to run.